MANO-MANO

We are not ready for automated polls. The machines, which serve as vote counters, have recently proved to be unreliable during random testings. The call for the return to manual count may be a backward step but many now see this as imperative. The "mano-mano" method in vote-counting is tedious, taxing and time-consuming. But this procedure is at least comforting for it is familiar to us.

I personally prefer the familiar to the alien, especially if the new thing is prone to error. But we have not yet tried the machine. Let us give it a chance. But if the worst does happen on election day, the manual count should come to the rescue. The future of the Philippines should not be at the mercy of failing machines. Never will democracy be subordinate to technology.

CHEATING

Many people think that there will be a failure of elections on May 10, 2010. This is such a dark forecast. This may just be true. The failure of elections is but the result of the general failure of this country’s morality. Our present day morality hardly reflects the righteousness of God. Moral corruption, oftentimes imputed on politicians, is actually an across-the-board moral infection. Most of us are guilty.

Cheating happens inside the home. It happens outside the home. There is cheating in the classroom, in the workplace, in the offices, in the government and in the church. And cheating in the elections is nothing new at all. Such crookedness does not exalt our nation. If massive cheating does take place next week, we would never know who truly won. The nation gets cheated…again. The cheaters themselves also get cheated. “Weather weather lang ‘yan…. Kawawa ang Pilipinas.”

TOO MANY POSTERS

Campaign posters are everywhere! I see them on walls, posts, tree trunks and flat vertical surfaces. Campaigns go for the overkill. Image overkill! And the repetitive images and faces and names are way too much. To be ubiquitous is deemed an effective campaign strategy. But dozens of the same person's face plastered on just one big wall is just too assaulting and even desperate.

Would I forget a candidate if I see only about five of his smiling face on every wall in the city? Is power of recall truly insured when the same politician's face is multiplied innumerably in every legal campaign space available? I don't think so. Personally, I don't need to see the same politician's face a hundred or even a thousand times so that I can surely remember him/her. Remembering the candidates is actually different from voting for the candidates.

Political campaigns here in our country is dirty figuratively and literally. After the elections all campaign posters turn into litter.

Just way too much garbage! Yuck!

If I Were a Political Candidate

If I were a candidate who would run for a position in government, I would also wisely consider the possibility of my defeat. Success is not predictably assured to those with money, image, clout and even experience. The present mental health of our nation is not at all excellent. Government seats may have random occupants after a not so trusted electoral process.

If I would lose in the elections, I would continue to serve the people. Not getting the seat I most wanted to have should not deter me from being a public servant. Defeated politicians have no real excuse to turn their back on society if they sincerely had no selfish interests in running for office. In their own unique capacities they can still serve the poor, the disenfranchised and the less fortunate among us.

Losing the election is not a reason to end one's altruism.

The Unqualified Candidate

The fears of an unqualified candidate are many. He fears he would be eventually proved unqualified when he is already in office. He fears his incompetence would lead to his downfall. He fears his corrupt motives will be exposed. He fears what people say of his past, his skeletons in the closet. He fears his personal demons will un-seat him.

I am for early exposure of the true person running for a government seat. When something is exposed, there should be reliable and concrete evidence. If a charge verges on the malicious and scandalous, I will not totally dismiss it. It may just be true.

I still think that there are unqualified candidates out there who have no fears at all. They know that they can get away with many things. They believe they will be elected. And they do get elected. The politics of politics makes our politics here dirty and rotten. The Philippines continues to suffer and crawl.

Running for Office (Original Poem)

They are running for office.
Their mouths are dripping
with promises,
rhetoric and honey.

We are applauding.
They are moving us
with their moving tongues
and moving hands
in conventions
and rallies.

They are running for office.
Their lips are moving.
And we are listening.
We are cheering,
clapping and voting.

Then they are in office.
We keep waiting
for the fulfillment.

Then we sing the same sad songs
while we are crawling.

MUD

In political campaigns issues are never primary. Issues are raised. Then they eventually get blurred and unfortunately sink in the political mud. Ask supporters of their political candidate’s vision and platform and you hardly get substantial answers. (I admit. I too am guilty of this.) Ask them about the mud slung here and there. There will be quick responses. Political campaigns here in our country start off with grand slogans and intentions to serve people. Then the inevitable posturing and mud-slinging happen. And this is entertaining for many. Filipinos love to be entertained first. To be informed well is not first and foremost. Besides, people love posters. They remember the poster boy. But they forget the true issues because issues are often forgettable. Mud is memorable. Mud is part of the politics of politics.

QUITTER

If I were a politician running for office and I would find myself consistently lagging far behind surveys and polls, I would back out. Yes, this would make me a quitter. But this quitter is a wise quitter. It takes wisdom to discern the futility of running a race that is somehow not worth running...yet. It also takes humility to concede and bow out. This does not make me a defeatist at all. Pride and hunger for power usually push politicians to waste money on campaigns that are bound to fail. They are free to run though. But their foolhardiness would do the nation as a whole no good.